CORRESPONDENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9530, 30 June 1909, Page 7

CORRESPONDENCE.

[To the Editor.]

Sir, —1 have read a paragraph, in the columns of your valuaole paper, dated 14th inst, on the life and habits of that famous "bird" the "Kea," under the heading of contributed. Nuw, sir, being one who has had a wide experience of back country station life on the South Island ranges—having piloted shepherds over such rough and mountainous country as Mount Peel, Clarence River, Lake Coleridge, and Glenthorn' stations the two Ihtter bounding on the dividing range between Canterbury and Hokitika, and having spent seven years on the two lastmentioned places, both being the property of the late John Murchison, deceased, of Rakaia Gorge, and well known to every musterer as a favourite home of this much dreaded "bird," I might well claim to be in - a position to speak on the subject. Your contributor states he has had a varied experience also in he habits of the "kea." and gives his versions, which are undoubtedly true. However, he states he has never actually seen a kea in the act of killing a live sheep on the ranges. I poistively state I have seen them in the act of killing sheep on Lake Coleridge station. When snow raking, after a rather sudden and unexpected fal. of snow in the autumn of 1905, another i musterer was with meat tne time as une is never allowed to travel on the rangss snow raking alone. He ia now manager of a * well-known sheep station in South Wairarapaand can verify my statements. The country is very high and rugged on the station and affords plenty of shelter for the "kea." To show how numerous these deadly birds are, I might state that in one month's trip out mustering at the pack a shepherd shot seventy-six on a run at the head of the Wilberforce and Harper rivers. Your contributor is right in all other respects as regards the early morning and about dusk in the evening as their favourite time for fossicking food. Even a red handkerchief on one's head about these stated times is sufficient to draw them close enough for one to shoot them. They generally make for the kidney of a sheep, and actually bore a hole big enough to put your fist in. They build chiefly in the cre«ices of rocks, where it is impossible to get at their young ones, and when the young "keas" are about then the old ones are busy at their work, and can be heard for miles around in the evenings on the wing as one sits by the camp fires thinking of the next day's hard "beat" he got to traverse. —I am,£etc.,* ''l jH*" EX-MUSTERER.